


Pragmatics

by Saathi1013



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Older Characters, Other, POV Character of Color, POV Male Character, POV Third Person Limited, Pining, Polyamory, what happens to the remaining members of an ot3 when one of them dies?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-28 09:45:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7635523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are too many men in the world who have mourned the loss of a wife as Walt Longmire has; there is only one other man who mourns the loss of this particular woman as he does.  The people around them have never noticed.</p><p>It has never been a secret, not precisely.  They just never talked about it.  </p><p>There are a lot of things they never talk about.</p><p>
  <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics">From Wikipedia</a>: "Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning... The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pragmatics

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place towards the end of season 2, but contains spoilers from eps through s3e01.
> 
> No beta; errors, if pointed out kindly, will be corrected with alacrity. This is based on the tv series, not the books, so character backgrounds may be wildly divergent beyond even the obvious.

Henry is measuring glass for a new windowpane when Walt's truck rolls to a stop in front of the cabin.  He sets the grease pencil aside on the makeshift workbench he has set up in the yard with plywood and two sawhorses.  The pencil is his own, as are the gloves he is wearing and the tool box at his feet; the rest comes from the stack of neglected supplies from the shed out back.  Walt has, understandably, taken time to revive from his long emotional hibernation, and his cabin has suffered for both it and for the cause of his withdrawal.  That does not mean that Henry will stand idle, watching the building that Martha had built into a home disintegrate with disrepair.

Walt steps down from his truck and leans with one forearm propped on the open door, head tipped as he surveys the scene. “It is past time we talked about your campaign, Walt,” Henry tells him, bypassing any explanation for the glass.  

Walt shoots him a brief glance that Henry’s more used to seeing on broke patrons’ faces when he tells them it is time to settle up, and closes the truck's door.  By the time he meets Henry's gaze again, his mouth is flat with resignation.  "...all right," he says.

"You do not have to be so dramatic," Henry tells him.  "I brought alcohol."  There, that did it.  The creases from a smile bracket Walt's eyes.  He helps Henry pull a tarp over the workbench; they can finish fixing the window later.

Henry is used to drinking Rainier with Walt, but it is not his own preference.  So he has brought a partial fifth of whiskey from his own stock to augment the case of beer that is waiting on the porch.  Walt goes into the house for a few minutes and returns without his hat and jacket, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, two cut-glass tumblers in one hand.  They are the only two remaining from the set that he and Martha had gotten as a wedding present.  One had broken when they had moved in, cracked in the box despite the care they had taken in packing.  Henry had broken another, fumbling with soapy hands in the sink, attempting to wash dishes while Martha had tried to disprove Walt's assertion that Henry was not ticklish and never had been.

There had been a decanter, too – where had that gone?  The last Henry had seen of it, it had been turned into a vase and set beside the bedroom window, where its facets had caught the sun and shot sparks onto the ceiling.  He and Walt had taken turns bringing Martha flowers, to cheer her up whenever she was too tired from the treatments to leave bed.  Perhaps it is still there, flowers pitched into the compost, the water long evaporated to a brown film coating the inside of the glass, the stopper still on the sill.

He could go in to look, perhaps, but does not.  It has been a long time since he felt he had any right to freely enter that space.  It seems strange now, that he ever did.

This is enough, sitting next to Walt on the porch, boots propped on the railing, watching the color of the sky begin to make its long slow shift through hues as the sun sets.  It is more than enough, after their estrangement, unwilling though it had been on Henry's part.  Even Walt seems to regret it, now that he has come back to himself somewhat.  Henry has not yet pointed out how unhappy Martha would have been with them both – with Walt for walling Henry out, and with Henry for allowing it.

_Every culture processes grief in its own way._

She would have not been pleased with their current state, either, pale shadow of their former bond as it is.  To Henry's mind, a brisk day in spring is better than the deep, dark freeze of a January night.

"So what were you thinking?" Walt asks.

Henry pretends to consider this.  "We should take my savings and your campaign fund and run off to a tropical island," he replies, gaze fixed on the horizon.  If he catches Walt's eye, he will not be able to keep a straight face.  Walt is not enamored of beaches; he hates sand and muggy humid heat and gets grumpy on boats unless he is catching dinner and there is beer on hand.  Also, Henry has seen Walt in a busy commercial airport exactly once.  It was the only time Walt had ever seemed _twitchy_ , like his skin was crawling and he was two seconds from bolting.

Henry likes the ocean, if it is not too hot.  It is beautiful, and open, and honest about its total lack of mercy while also supporting endless varieties of life.  He understands places like that far better than he does cities.

"Ruby an' Cady would team up to tan our hides, if we even thought about trying," Walt replies, voice warm.  Henry gives in and looks over.  Walt smiles so rarely nowadays that it is worth losing some composure to see it.

"Truly a terrifying prospect," Henry concedes.  "I suppose you will simply have to endure politics for a little while longer."

Cornered, Walt takes a draught of his beer and looks away, watching his mare amble across her pasture.  Henry does not know what Walt calls her.  Years ago, he said that he believed that animals have names of their own, besides those that their humans put on licenses and registration forms.  Therefore, choosing a name for an animal is redundant.  The best way to learn its name is to wait and see.

It had taken Walt and Martha _months_ to agree on a name for their daughter.  If you ask Henry, Walt is just bad at naming things. 

"Speaking of which, whose idea was the website?" Walt asks.  Henry lifts his eyebrows.  It has taken Walt long enough to find out about it.  He is not a Luddite, but he reaches for his rifle more often than his laptop, usually forgets the charging cable at the office, and the only email he has is the w.longmire@acso.wyo.gov account that Ruby set up for him.  

Ruby made one for Henry, too: h.standingbear.  He appreciates the absurdity but has not used it, despite her insistence that it might come in handy during those infrequent occasions that he has been deputized.  It is no secret that she wants to see his temporary appointment made permanent one of these days, not least because she thinks Henry can help handle Walt when he is being difficult.  Henry has not had the heart to contradict that wishful thinking with the truth.  He and Walt cannot be in close quarters for extended amounts of time without exacerbating each other's moods, fair and foul alike.  Hunting trips are one thing; living or working together long-term is entirely different.

"Ferg recommended we buy the domain and ones similar to it, so that you do not have to worry about defamation.  And I had a cousin who needed a project for her technology class."  Henry spreads his hands wide.  "Serendipity."  Walt huffs a breath gently through his nose, conveying exactly how convincing he finds that explanation.  It is not a falsehood.  That it had gained Walt some good will among the teachers at the school and the parents of a few students is icing on the cake, as far as Henry is concerned.

"Lizzie thought it was a good idea," Henry comments lightly, taking a sip of his whiskey while Walt goes utterly, _utterly_ still in his seat.  "Just as I agree with her that you should have a party for your donors and volunteers at her place the day before the election."  There is a hawk circling over the pines, about a mile away.  it makes five full circuits it before it drops out of sight.

"...oh?" Walt replies, a minute too late and a note too high to match Henry's casual delivery.

"It is still a week away," Henry says.  "Do you think she might withdraw the offer?"

Walt clears his throat, shifting in his chair.  "I... don't know."

"She has proven to be a very...  _dedicated_  supporter thus far," Henry adds.  "I think you can rely on her."

" _Henry_ ," Walt says.

Having made his point, Henry relents.  "I like her, Walt," he says.  "I think she could be good for you."  The unspoken 'if' hangs in the air.   _If you let her._

Walt leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees, rolling his empty Rainier can between his palms until the aluminum creaks and crumples.  "You might be right," he allows.

"I know it is no longer my place—" Henry begins.

Walt sits up again, the abruptness of the motion stilling Henry's tongue.  "No longer _your place?_ " he echoes, squinting intently at Henry.  "First off, when has that ever stopped you from sharing your opinion on anything?  Secondly, of course it's your place, it's _always_ been your place..."  His gaze wavers and then drops to the crushed can in his hand.  "It's yours as long as you want it."

This is not what Henry had expected to result from his teasing.  He had thought that he would give Walt some shit about Lizzie, receive some in exchange about Deena, and that would be that.  He is wholly unprepared for this.

"Walt," he says slowly, picking his words with deliberate care, "do you think you need my blessing?"  Walt shrugs, not looking up.  "I did not think those rules still applied."  They have not needed them in decades, anyway.  Henry had never found someone else he wanted to be involved with more than casually or for longer than a handful of months.  He had never needed to invoke their old agreement, and the one and only time Walt had done so... had been with Martha.

Walt drops the can and reaches over, circling Henry's wrist with a gentle clasp of his fingers.  "In all the time you've known me," Walt says, voice rough, "have I ever been a fan of changing the rules I live by?"

Henry blinks rapidly to ease the sting in his eyes.  He looks away, across the pastures and the fields and the forest, out into the open sky.  The hawk is circling, aloft again.  "No," he answers finally.  "No, you have not."

They sit in silence like that for some time.  Things begin to make sense, not like puzzle pieces falling into place.  More like stepping back and realizing that he has been putting together a whole section upside-down.  Walt had withdrawn, sure, had gone to a place Henry had been unable to follow.  In the depths of his grief, had it seemed to Walt that Henry had _chosen_ not to follow?

The three of them had become like a stool with three legs, sure and steady until one leg had been knocked out from underneath.  They both had forgotten there had been balance with two before they had been blessed with a third.  Neither finding equilibrium on their own, they have been unstable since.

Henry still resents being accused of running a trailer brothel, though.  Walt's life may have spiraled, his job and home neglected, but Henry had buried himself in his work.  He had given the Pony a thorough once-over, from replacing uneven and worn-out floorboards to fixing some of the dodgy wiring in the overhead lights.  He does not pretend that it has been upgraded to Michelin status, but it is his, and he is proud of it, and it needed the attention.

On the other hand, Henry does now regret the times he has pushed Walt to move on.  It must have seemed like rejection, like a directive to both stop grieving Martha and to get over a lifetime of intimacy with Henry.   _It is what it is_ , Henry had said, trying to convince himself as much as Walt, contributing to the gulf between them, to the delay in finding each other again.  They are here now, though, in that liminal space they once considered a refuge, and Henry will again have to adjust to the boundaries between them shifting.

Walt's hand is wet where it covers Henry's.  At first, he thinks it is sweat, or some dregs of beer that had leaked out from the broken side of the can, until it creeps down the side of Henry's palm.  "I believe you are bleeding," he says, looking down.  Walt turns his hand over and there is a neat cut at the base of his thumb.

"Oh," Walt says.  "That's odd.  I– I didn't notice."

It is not a large injury, but Walt is probably lying regardless.  "You should clean that up," Henry tells him.

"You, too," Walt says, gesturing to the smeared blood across the back of Henry's hand.  "Come on inside."

Henry rolls up his sleeves and washes up at the kitchen sink with liquid dish soap. Looking around for a towel, he finds one just before he spots the tea box.  It is very nearly at eye level, where Walt could not fail see it every day.  Henry exhales heavily, knowing what it still contains.  Martha's remains should not be shut away like this; it means some part of her will always be trapped in this place, weighing Walt's mornings, adding bitterness to each meal.  She loved fresh air and the changing seasons and fresh-turned earth.  That is where she should be.

_Every culture processes grief in its own way._

Henry has no right to decide this.  Martha shared herself with Walt first, and while she and Henry had their own bonds of affection, had built their own partnership over time, it was Walt she married on the hillside, so long ago.  It had been Walt's child she had carried, for all that Henry had done his share of raising Cady.  More than his share, Martha had occasionally fretted, always anxious for the sake of Walt's job or worse.  

In the end, the danger had never been from Henry going above and beyond what whites might expect from a godfather.

Henry finishes drying off and hangs the towel back on the hook where he found it.  Walt is in the bathroom, frowning at the small challenge of bandaging his dominant hand without reopening the clotting wound.  He does not need assistance, but Henry takes the band-aid and tears the paper wrapper off for him anyway.  If Henry is being honest, he is glad for the excuse to touch again.  He takes Walt's hand in his, tilting it just so, lines the gauze patch up, then smooths the adhesive ends down with his thumbs, one at a time.

They have done this since childhood, tended each other's wounds, great and small.

Henry glances up to find Walt watching him, expression dark.  "Are we done talking about the election?" he asks.

"For now," Henry replies, smiling.

"Good," Walt replies, and crowds Henry back against the door frame to kiss him.

It is not like returning to something familiar, to something well-worn and comfortable.  Henry is startled to find that they are clumsy with each other, that there are things he has forgotten.  It has been years, after all, since around the first round of Martha's treatments or so.  Walt is slightly taller, but Henry had gotten out of the habit of tipping his head _up_.  Walt's fingers thread through Henry's hair, and they tremble against his scalp.  He is being too gentle.

Henry decides not to play fair.  He hauls Walt close with one fist clutching the front of his shirt and applies the edge of his teeth to Walt's lower lip, appreciating the gasp this earns.  Walt braces one hand on the wall for balance and lets Henry take the reins for a bit.

Henry's head swims, his thoughts muddled by wanting.  He had not consciously missed this; he had not allowed himself to.  They had not stopped being intimate deliberately, through any kind of mutual agreement.  They had other priorities, other more pressing concerns to occupy their thoughts.  And then there had been grief, a burden Henry would have willingly shared with Walt, if only they had found a way back to each other.  Neither of them could have been blamed, really.  They had no shared language for sorrow like this, had never needed one before they lost Martha.  By the time Henry had recognized that this aspect of their relationship had been lost to them, it was distant enough that it did not cause fresh pain.  It had ached, sometimes, like the shoulder he had injured in high school football, the memory of hurt surfacing whenever the weather took a sudden turn.

He now knows this was not lost but simply  _buried_ , and the ache fills his chest, welling up like water in a spring thought dormant.

Walt is a patient man.  Some might say he moves glacially, his every action made with purpose and with care.  Henry knows better.  He has seen Walt's temper snap, seen him drop everything to rush Martha to the hospital or to go to Cady's school after one of her infrequent incidents confronting bullies or too-handsy would-be suitors.  He can feel Walt's restraint crumbling now, as if he is being flooded with the same revived desire.

"I want–" Henry starts, attempting to distill everything into words and failing.

"Yes," Walt murmurs anyway, drawing back.  Henry sags against the door frame, watching Walt moving away, hands on the top button of his shirt.  "...you comin'?" he asks, a faint smile in his eyes, the hint of challenge in his tone.

"Yes," Henry tells him, _"hell,_ yes," and follows him to the bedroom.

There is nothing new to find there.  The room is more sparse, cluttered with fewer personal things, no hairbrush on the dresser or second set of reading glasses on the side table, but there are still perfume bottles next to Walt's cologne and necklaces hang from the upraised arms of a pewter jewelry tree like Spanish moss.  Walt's hair had been gray before, on his head and chest and belly, and he had always been built solidly rather than trim, but he is perhaps grayer, ever so slightly softer about the middle.

Well and so, the same is true for Henry.  He considers himself too old for shallow vanity, confident in his skills and charisma and place in the world, but it is gratifying nonetheless to have Walt's gaze linger proprietarily, to have his hands greedily rove over his skin.  It is still a heady thing, to have Walt groan his name, to hear him ask, "Will you–" with an edge of desperation.

It will never, _never_ stop being a revelatory experience, feeling Walt open up beneath him, yielding to Henry's fingers and his tongue and his cock.  They've rarely done this; it is too messy, too time-consuming, too _much_ for them both in many ways when equal satisfaction could be found through other, less complicated means.  It seems right today.

Henry runs his fingers down the scars on Walt's back, earning a shudder.  Walt catches Henry's hand, pulls it around to encircle his waist, drawing them closer.  Henry holds him tight, dropping his forehead to rest against Walt's spine, closing his eyes and exhaling raggedly as they move together.

Henry runs his other hand up the sleek, strong line of Walt's inner thigh and higher, stroking Walt with a sure grip.  The bed creaks gently in time with their movements, and he fights a smile that must still show, trembling through his breath, maybe, because Walt huffs.  "Don't," he says, and Henry can hear his answering amusement in his voice, filtered through the strain and the raw, naked need, "don't you _dare_ stop."

"I would not dream of it," Henry replies, though he is uncertain how much longer they can both last.  He is grateful for every moment, cannot imagine he will ever get enough, cannot believe that he ever thought he could live the rest of his life without this, without being able to touch Walt and feel him fall apart in increments.  It is too soon before Henry finds himself crying out, mind clearing of everything except brilliant sensation.

Walt's voice brings him back, murmuring  _HenryHenryHenry,_  shifting uneasily.  Henry withdraws, lifts the weight of his body from Walt's, gives him enough room to roll over.  Walt is still hard, face drawn with the tension of having come close to the edge before being pulled away.  Henry takes him there again with his hands and then brings him over with his mouth, sympathetic tremors shaking his own limbs at the sound and the feel and the taste of Walt's release.

Henry lets himself drift, his head pillowed on Walt's thigh.  Walt combs through Henry's hair with slow strokes of his calloused fingers.  "Getting long again," he comments.  "Going to cut it?"

"I am considering it," Henry replies and yawns, covering his mouth with the back of one hand.  It has been a long time since he has let it grow past his shoulders.  Walt had liked it, when they were young, had appreciated how the heavy dark curtain would drape over Henry's back.  How it would fall around their faces like a shield from the rest of the world.

Henry does not remember why he had cut it in the first place.  When they'd gone up to Prudhoe Bay, probably: easier to take care of, especially in the deep freeze that usually grips the region, below zero for more than half the year.  Miserable, hard work, roughnecking in that climate, but it got Henry the money he needed to buy the Pony.

That had been a few years after they they had met Martha, first Walt when he pulled her over for speeding on the way home from work and then Henry when she went to the Pony for a drink.  There, she had complained at length about 'draconian law enforcement more concerned with superficial infractions than real systemic rottenness' until Henry had (re)introduced her to his best friend, who had been seated at the other end of the bar the entire time.  She had apologized for being rude, but not for her principles, and then she and Walt got lost in spirited but good-natured debate until after closing.  Henry, only a barback at the time, had eavesdropped as best he could, smirking whenever he noticed her scoring a hit.  She had left tipsy and beaming, Walt looking dazed in her wake.  "If you do not have her number, I will find a way to get it for myself," Henry had told him, half in jest and half as a way to indicate his approval before Walt could ask for it.

Walt had proposed within the year, as nervous bringing the possibility up with Henry as he had been asking Martha.  And then there had been Cady, and then all the preoccupations of life.

Gratitude wells up in Henry, for all the time they did have together.  Tears prick his eyes again, and he lets them fall.  Martha must be so disappointed with them for what they became after she had passed.  Perhaps even angry.  Henry is not sorry for hiring Hector; he only regrets being unable to see the task finished to the end.  It was a way to protect Walt, another layer of plausible deniability.  Soon enough Henry may have to tell him.  

Soon enough, but not today.

The sky is a deep rich indigo, and the peaks of the tallest trees blaze with salmon light that shrinks and fades, condensing to the topmost branches in one last flare before surrendering to night.  It is getting late.  Henry should leave for work in a little while.  

Walt's hand is gentle and steady in Henry's hair, and Henry yawns again.

 _In a little while_ , he tells himself.

 

 

\- end -

 

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine that this takes place between 2x08 ("The Great Spirit") and 2x09 ("Tuscan Red"). Just pretend that Henry decides to play hooky for the night, calls the Red Pony to tell his asst. manager that he's not coming in to work, and Walt cooks breakfast for them both before they hike up the slope for that fallen tree.
> 
> Puts Henry's challenge to Walt - "You have never said you want anything. Just say it. Come on. Say you want to be sheriff and you want to win." - in a different light, hey?


End file.
